Marie-Thérèse Abena Ondoa ( Obama) is a

Cameroon Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the R ...

ian academic and politician. She has been a Minister of Women's Empowerment and the Family since 2009. She was assistant dean in the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Yaounde before her appointment as Minister.

Academic and medical activities

Prior to her ministerial appointment, she worked in environments such as universities and hospitals. She was notably a Professor at the Faculty of

Medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...

, University of Yaoundé; Vice-Dean of this faculty, in charge of

research Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...

and cooperation; and Head of the Pediatric Department of the University Teaching Hospital (CHU) of

Yaoundé Yaoundé (; , ) is the Capital city, capital city of Cameroon. It has a population of more than 2.8 million which makes it the second-largest city in the country after the port city Douala. It lies in the Centre Region (Cameroon), Centre Region o ...

. She was appointed the director of the regional hospital of Yaoundé on March 17, 2009, becoming the first Cameroonian

woman A woman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, a female child or Adolescence, adolescent is referred to as a girl. Typically, women are of the female sex and inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and women with functi ...

to hold this position.

Politics

In 2009, four months after her appointment as head of the regional hospital in Yaounde, she was appointed Minister of Women's Empowerment and the Family, replacing Suzanne Mbomback who held this position from 2004. She was reappointed to carry out these same functions during the cabinet reshuffle of October 2, 2015, in the cabinet of

Philemon Yang Philemon may refer to: In the Bible * Epistle to Philemon The Epistle to Philemon is one of the books of the Christianity, Christian New Testament. It is a Prison literature, prison letter, authored by Paul the Apostle (the opening verse al ...

. In 2016, she managed a budget of nearly 7 billion CFA francs (just over 10 million

euro The euro (currency symbol, symbol: euro sign, €; ISO 4217, currency code: EUR) is the official currency of 20 of the Member state of the European Union, member states of the European Union. This group of states is officially known as the ...

s), a 21% increase from the previous year's amount. On the third International Day of Children's Rights in 2016, she strongly opposed child marriage, which particularly affects girls by depriving them of education and deters their empowerment. She called on community and religious leaders, as well as journalists and heads of households, to fight against this practice and "other negative traditional practices." Regarding delays in education and training of women, she advocated for a school construction policy, which she implemented with foreign funding including that of

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. Her ministry supports vocational training centers for girls who have dropped out of school in rural areas. These centers offer programs such as information and communication technology (ICT) and project management, which enables the beneficiaries to work locally. On 19 April 2012, a bill on the review of the electoral code of Cameroon was passed. It adopted measures to respect gender equality, resulting in an increase in the number of women parliamentarians from 25 to 56, enabling the country to achieve the goals set by the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abena Ondoa, Marie-Thérèse 1942 births Cameroon People's Democratic Movement politicians Women government ministers of Cameroon Cameroonian pediatricians People from Douala Living people 21st-century Cameroonian women politicians 21st-century Cameroonian politicians